Progressive Scan DVD & Upconverting DVD players

[techwanabe]

Related to a few other topics, since I'm getting 46-inch LCD 1080P HDTV, I was wondering about a couple things.

1) First off I have a Panasonic DVD player I've had for 3 or 4 years. I bought it with "progressive scan" feature to make it a little more forward compatible for the day I bought an HDTV. I was told it would be a feature to use with HDTV's. It's been a while, can someone explain to me what "progressive scan" does to the picture to make it more suitable to an HDTV?

2) And by way of follow up, I am considering Blue Ray but the prices are still high and I might wait a bit to see if they fall, especially with fall Christmas season pricing etc. Until then, I may just get by on DVD movies on my new HDTV. Watching them may make me feel ok or OTOH, may make me want to get true HD movies. We'll see.

What is the deal with Upconverting DVD players. The tags say the give a 1080P signal to an HDTV capable of a 1080 picture. If so, we are playing DVD's with 480P content and how are we getting a 1080 picture from that? Does some kind of processing fill in the pixels and make it look better and higher rez some how? How does it look?

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: techwanabe
1) First off I have a Panasonic DVD player I've had for 3 or 4 years. I bought it with "progressive scan" feature to make it a little more forward compatible for the day I bought an HDTV. I was told it would be a feature to use with HDTV's. It's been a while, can someone explain to me what "progressive scan" does to the picture to make it more suitable to an HDTV?

All DVD video, to the best of my knowledge, is actually stored in 480i. Your progressive scan player does the deinterlacing, and outputs 480p. If your DVD player is better at deinterlacing than your HDTV, you'll see a quality gain.

2) And by way of follow up, I am considering Blue Ray but the prices are still high and I might wait a bit to see if they fall, especially with fall Christmas season pricing etc. Until then, I may just get by on DVD movies on my new HDTV. Watching them may make me feel ok or OTOH, may make me want to get true HD movies. We'll see.

It's going to depend heavily on the source material, honestly.

What is the deal with Upconverting DVD players. The tags say the give a 1080P signal to an HDTV capable of a 1080 picture. If so, we are playing DVD's with 480P content and how are we getting a 1080 picture from that? Does some kind of processing fill in the pixels and make it look better and higher rez some how? How does it look?

The DVD player has an upscaling chip in it. Essentially, the upscaler takes a look at the video coming into it, and makes a best guess as to what should be in those additional pixels using (sometimes very complicated) algorithms. It will never look as good as a BR-D or HD-DVD with a true 1080p encoding. Again, your DVD player's scaler might even be worse than your HDTV's - experiment!

Woot was selling refurb Oppo 981s for $100 like a week ago. If you can find one on eBay for something similar to that price, you'd be getting a fantastic deal.

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: erwosAll DVD video, to the best of my knowledge, is actually stored in 480i. Your progressive scan player does the deinterlacing, and outputs 480p. If your DVD player is better at deinterlacing than your HDTV, you'll see a quality gain.

That seems to explain what DVD players do with standard DVD output. But what about "progressive scan"? At the time I bought my Panisonic DVD player, most DVD players didn't have it so you had to look for the feature. What does "progressive scan" do to the out put? I was told at the time it was a feature that only HDTV's could take advantage of. More recently someone commented that it just allows the picture to be displayed at the correct aspect ratio on an HDTV and not be "squashed" or something.

The DVD player has an upscaling chip in it. Essentially, the upscaler takes a look at the video coming into it, and makes a best guess as to what should be in those additional pixels using (sometimes very complicated) algorithms. It will never look as good as a BR-D or HD-DVD with a true 1080p encoding. Again, your DVD player's scaler might even be worse than your HDTV's - experiment!

So many HDTV's have an upscaler built in so I don't necessarily have to consider buying an upscaling DVD player - assuming I don't buy a Blu Ray player?

Woot was selling refurb Oppo 981s for $100 like a week ago. If you can find one on eBay for something similar to that price, you'd be getting a fantastic deal.

What is the Oppo 981s? If it is simply an upscaling DVD player - BB has lots of choices between $60 and 100 smackers. Or is it a Blu Ray?

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: techwanabe
That seems to explain what DVD players do with standard DVD output. But what about "progressive scan"? At the time I bought my Panisonic DVD player, most DVD players didn't have it so you had to look for the feature. What does "progressive scan" do to the out put? I was told at the time it was a feature that only HDTV's could take advantage of. More recently someone commented that it just allows the picture to be displayed at the correct aspect ratio on an HDTV and not be "squashed" or something.

I just told you what it does - it deinterlaces the source material and outputs it as progressive scan. So instead of half a frame every 24 or 30 seconds, it would output a whole frame every 24 or 30 seconds. I don't think it has anything to do with aspect ratio.

The reason only HDTVs could take advantage of it was because regular SDTVs only output at 480i.

So many HDTV's have an upscaler built in so I don't necessarily have to consider buying an upscaling DVD player - assuming I don't buy a Blu Ray player?

The only possible answer is "maybe". I'd buy an upscaling DVD player at a retail outlet with a no-questions-asked money-back guarantee and compare. Most people see some improvement with an upscaling DVD player.

What is the Oppo 981s? If it is simply an upscaling DVD player - BB has lots of choices between $60 and 100 smackers. Or is it a Blu Ray?

The Oppo 981 is one of the best, if not the best, upscaling DVD player you can buy. Most of the stuff at Best Buy will be good at best.

 

[techwanabe]

OK, I think your progressive scan comments make a little sense. It's basically gives you a 480P image on TV"s that can accept a progressive scan input and many/most HDTV's can probably.

I found the following by seaching the web:

Link

Progressive scanning, otherwise known as 480P
(p=progressive), creates a picture signal with double the scan lines of a conventional interlaced picture, 480I (I=interlaced), to create a noticeably sharper image. The 480P image offers higher picture resolution and eliminates virtually all motion artifacts. Even on large screens, the progressive scan lines are barely noticeable and picture flickering is greatly reduced, so you can enjoy extended viewing without eye fatigue. Our progressive scan DVD players can handle both progressive and conventional interlaced video.

In order to take advantage of a progressive scan DVD player, your TV must be capable of accepting and displaying a progressive scan signal (480p).

and Wikipedia:

Link

I think my confusion is that I didn't think 480P represented a "high definition" picture. I thought that was reserved for 780 lines or really 1080. So the fact that a DVD player is feeding a 480P signal rather than a 480i signal seems to be no big deal?

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: techwanabe
I think my confusion is that I didn't think 480P represented a "high definition" picture. I thought that was reserved for 780 lines or really 1080. So the fact that a DVD player is feeding a 480P signal rather than a 480i signal seems to be no big deal?

Again, this all depends on your HDTV's scaler. If your TV's scaler can deinterlace the 480i signal better than the DVD player, yes, it's no big deal. If it can't, then the DVD player doing it is indeed helpful.

You're right - it's not an HD signal coming out of your progressive scan player. That's why people will buy 1080p/1080i/720p upscaling DVD players, which will not only perform the progressive scan conversion via deinterlacing, but also upscale the picture to HD.

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: techwanabe
I think my confusion is that I didn't think 480P represented a "high definition" picture. I thought that was reserved for 780 lines or really 1080. So the fact that a DVD player is feeding a 480P signal rather than a 480i signal seems to be no big deal?

Again, this all depends on your HDTV's scaler. If your TV's scaler can deinterlace the 480i signal better than the DVD player, yes, it's no big deal. If it can't, then the DVD player doing it is indeed helpful.

You're right - it's not an HD signal coming out of your progressive scan player. That's why people will buy 1080p/1080i/720p upscaling DVD players, which will not only perform the progressive scan conversion via deinterlacing, but also upscale the picture to HD.

Well, something to chew on! I'm sort of faced with a decision if my new Sammy LN46A650 doesn't have good upscaling. PS3 with Blue Ray (but does it upsale too?) or go cheap and get a relatively inexpensive DVD player with upscaling.

Thanks!

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: techwanabe
Well, something to chew on! I'm sort of faced with a decision if my new Sammy LN46A650 doesn't have good upscaling. PS3 with Blue Ray (but does it upsale too?) or go cheap and get a relatively inexpensive DVD player with upscaling.

The PS3 upscales pretty well. Not as well as an Oppo, but still pretty good. Not sure how good the scaler is in the A650 series - I would imagine it'll be pretty acceptable.

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: techwanabe
Well, something to chew on! I'm sort of faced with a decision if my new Sammy LN46A650 doesn't have good upscaling. PS3 with Blue Ray (but does it upsale too?) or go cheap and get a relatively inexpensive DVD player with upscaling.

The PS3 upscales pretty well. Not as well as an Oppo, but still pretty good. Not sure how good the scaler is in the A650 series - I would imagine it'll be pretty acceptable.

That is good to know! More reasons to consider that option. If I can swing one for $300 with the Sony CC, maybe I'll jump!

 

[sivart]

you can use the 'progressive scan' feature on any fixed panel display that can handle at least a 480p signal. This could be an LCD computer monitor, an older 480p plasma or a current HDTV...it isn't limited to HDTV's.

The chip that does the upscale makes a huge difference, especially as screen size grows. I can tell a noticeable difference between 480p, 1080p via PS3 and 1080p via LG BH200 (Quedo chip). With the last being the best looking on my 100" screen. (front projection)

 

[Oyeve]

My Denon PS DVD player has the Farouji (or whatever the hell its called) upscaler and when I use it on my recently purchased HDTV it looks like crap. I play DVDs through my xbox 360 and it upscales DVDs very nicely.

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
My Denon PS DVD player has the Farouji (or whatever the hell its called) upscaler and when I use it on my recently purchased HDTV it looks like crap. I play DVDs through my xbox 360 and it upscales DVDs very nicely.

Interesting. Sounds like there is a lot of variation then between upscaling.

 

[Elstupido]

I get somewhat confused with all this talk. All I can say is, I have a progressive scan Sony DVD player recorder to record TV. I also have a Toshiba HD D3 upconverting player, and I can tell you this much, the Toshiba looks a whole lot better playing DVD's, than the Sony, which isn't bad. Almost HD quality for a standard def DVD on the Toshiba. Now that also depends on which DVD's are being played. some are better than others.

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: Elstupido
I get somewhat confused with all this talk. All I can say is, I have a progressive scan Sony DVD player recorder to record TV. I also have a Toshiba HD D3 upconverting player, and I can tell you this much, the Toshiba looks a whole lot better playing DVD's, than the Sony, which isn't bad. Almost HD quality for a standard def DVD on the Toshiba. Now that also depends on which DVD's are being played. some are better than others.

Well, I haven't had a chance to compare DVD vs upscaled DVD. I did just get my new HDTV 1080P 46-inch and I put in my Lord of the Rings DVD (wide screen edition) and tried it out. At native aspect ratio there was a lot of black bar on the top and bottom, and the picture looked decent but not high detail and crispness. I could zoom it in. At mid zoom, it looses some detail and looks a little out of focus - fair at best. Zoomed to full screen it was unacceptable to me. That is a DVD played on a progressive scan Panasonic player.

So it will be interesting to see how much improved the picture will be upscaled. If it is sharpened and crisped, that will be a good thing. Especially because I've been told LOTR isn't coming out on Blu Ray until 2011!

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: techwanabe

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: techwanabe
Well, something to chew on! I'm sort of faced with a decision if my new Sammy LN46A650 doesn't have good upscaling. PS3 with Blue Ray (but does it upsale too?) or go cheap and get a relatively inexpensive DVD player with upscaling.

The PS3 upscales pretty well. Not as well as an Oppo, but still pretty good. Not sure how good the scaler is in the A650 series - I would imagine it'll be pretty acceptable.

That is good to know! More reasons to consider that option. If I can swing one for $300 with the Sony CC, maybe I'll jump!

This is your best option, IMO. Another choice would be to get an HD DVD player. I've seen them for less than $100, and most of them are on par with Oppo when it comes to upconverting dvd.

 

[Scorpi0]

I would also suggest getting one of those HD-DVD players on clearance while they are still around. They are going pretty cheap as losers of the HD format war. However they are still very good at upscaling standard DVDs.